While this is rather recent, I do believe the removal of customer satisfaction incentive pay for our tellers has reduced retention within Wells Fargo. As I have worked for Wells Fargo for approximately 6 years now, and through my tenure there, every level of the branch received some level of bonus compensation for how well the branch as a group performed in overall customer satisfaction (Swift – Week 7, Lectures 4 & 5). As mentioned, before, Wells Fargo has removed the incentive pay for tellers, while bankers and managers still receive bonus pay for overall customer experience, which for several reasons I do not think is very fair. Our survey system for customer experience generates surveys from both teller and banker interactions, with teller surveys making 60-70% of surveys for any given quarter. Though not as in-depth conversation wise, the number teller interactions do heavily outnumber the amount of banker interactions, creating a negative inequity in payout for our tellers, and a positive one for the bankers and managers (Swift Week 7, Lecture 1).

That’s not to say our tellers do not have access to decent benefits, as Wells Fargo does pay several dollars above the minimum wage rate for teller work, and also provides a wide array of benefits like health insurance, 401k, and paid-time off even for part-time employees (Swift Week 7, Lectures 6 & 8).

Still, I feel as though the lack of having an incentive pay for customer experience has reduced our retention, as several high performing tellers have left for other positions. Also, the incentive for good customer experience could be used a recruiting tool as well, as within the past couple of years, it has taken sometimes months at a time to even have a single applicant to one of our teller positions. Given the fact that a majority of the surveys come in from the teller side, I do believe they need to be fairly compensated for the amount of work they contribute toward customer experience, and believe there is plenty of opportunity for reinstating the incentive bonus for customer experience for our tellers.